Josh Peck: The Surprising Truth Behind The 127lb Weight Loss | E238

Josh Peck traces his life from a loving but financially precarious childhood with a single mother in New York, where food became his first love and a way to medicate deeper pain tied to his absent father. He describes becoming a working actor at 12, the reality that Drake and Josh paid no residuals, and his dramatic 127-pound weight loss at 18 that fixed the effect but not the cause. After turning to alcohol and Percocet, he hit a low at 21 and got sober through a 12-step program, staying sober 15 years. He also reflects on discovering his late father's other family, learning forgiveness, and how marriage and fatherhood forced him to do deeper emotional work.

• Drake and Josh paid about $100,000 a year for four years with no residuals, so Peck still worries about money like anyone else.
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• At his heaviest Peck was about 290 pounds, roughly 100 pounds overweight, between ages 13 and 18.
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• He lost the weight gradually by walking the city for miles and making one small change a day, losing about 40 pounds per year over three years.
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• Losing 127 pounds left him with a new body but the same self-hating mind, so he substituted food with drinking and drugs.
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• Peck got sober at 21 after the film The Whackness, realizing even success and a Sundance standing ovation didn't make him feel enough.
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• He has been sober for 15 years, most recently marking the milestone on February 15th.
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• He found photos of his late father for the first time by friending his half-sister on Facebook, learning his dad was a good father just not to him.
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• His father was in his 60s and married with another family when Peck was born to his 43-year-old single mother; he never met him.
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• Peck got into a professional performing arts high school in the Theater District whose alumni include Alicia Keys, Jesse Eisenberg, and Claire Danes.
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• A chance meeting in Calgary with Nickelodeon president Albie Hecht led to Peck's first TV show.
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• Actor Paget Brewster taught Peck the 'actress pizza' trick of eating only the cheese and pepperoni off the top.
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• Peck says actor John Stamos told him he could eat a turkey sandwich and be fine, sometimes forgetting to eat entirely.
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• Peck calls Ben Kingsley his favorite actor and compared working with him to having a rookie season with Michael Jordan.
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• Peck was doing stand-up comedy at eight years old.
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• His 12-step takeaway: 'if you want self-esteem do esteemable acts' and 'as long as you know that you're not God.'
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• His friend John, AKA Wheels, taught him 'you cannot think your way into right acting, you have to act your way into right thinking.'
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• Peck's first Kids Choice Award was won at the UK Kids Choice Awards in London, not in America.
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